If He Didn't Become Ironman
by mrs.captrogers
Summary: (Movie based) AU Tony doesn't go to Afghanistan, and his life turns out completely different, and as always full of surprises.


Alright this is my first fanfic I've ever uploaded, so please tell me if you like or not. It's a self-explained AU Tony doesn't become ironman, and his story ends up completely different

He would have never taken that trip that landed him with that shrapnel near his heart, leaving him the same old Tony. Billionaire, playboy, alcoholic. Eventually even Pepper started giving up on him. One night she wakes up suddenly, something is wrong, she can feel it. She decides to just drive over to Tony's to check on him, she doesn't even change clothes. She just slips a cardigan over her tank-top and yoga pants then jumps into her Audi (one of the many perks of being Tony's assistant for so long).

She doesn't stop in the drive she just pulls her car down to the shop where he is bound to be. But he isn't there. She starts up the stairs and finds a empty bottle of whiskey half way up, she picks it up with a sigh. He's gone back to the hard stuff again.

"Tony I thought you promised your therapist that you would stop drinking this!" She says loudly as she reaches the top of the stairs. But he isn't there to reply, instead three more bottles. Two empty, one half full. "Tony!?" She shouts a little louder, "Tony! Tony answer me!" She turns to Jarvis' monitor, "Where is he Jay?"

_Mr Stark decided to take a swim at midnight Miss Potts. It is three twenty two am now ma'am._

_"_I know!" She said as she bursted out the door closest to the pool. As she comes around the corner of the changing rooms she sees him in a chair facing the lawn and slows down. "You scared me to death boss... Tony?" She comes up to the chair that sits empty with a towel draped across the back and a bottle of Jackdaniels. "Tony?!" She snaps back at the pool and notices him floating from the bottom back to the top...face down. "TONY!" she screams. She tries to grab his arm and almost slips in herself. "Tony... c'mon Tony damn it!" She gets a good grip on his arm and pulls him to the side. Tony can't die tonight, not like this, she won't let it happen. Putting both of her arms under his she pulls him up soaking herself in the process. "Tony wake up. Tony...Tony...Tony c'mon Tony!" She says desperately as she starts giving him CPR. Tears stream down her face, she shouldn't have left him. She should have ran to him and told him that she loved him and all his flaws. That she knew that he could change and she would be proud to stand by him as he did. But now she couldn't. "Tony please..." she leaned down to kiss him just one as she always dreamed of doing so many times before.

His lips were soft as they looked, and sent a warm prickle down her body leaving her feeling like there was a fire in her heart that made her want to kiss him again and again and a hundred times more until her her heart stopped beating. She leaned her forehead on his tender lips.

"Damn you Tony Stark." She hit his chest, _hard. _Then water splashed her face as Tonys body shook under her. he kept coughing up water until it ran out then he started puking. She kept both of her hands on him as he did not wanting to let go.

"Pepper what...what happened...how did you..." he turned towards he and slung his arm around her. "I'm cold Pepper..."

"Shhhh." She said as she let go of him and ran to grab his towel. As she turned to take it to him he got up and tried to stumble to her, it was pathetic. This was the great Tony Stark. The man who has everything and yet he has so little that he almost drowned in his own pool. She was his crutch that he needed to keep his life up.

She helped him back to the house and up to his room as he told her of his wonderful alcohol filled night, completely forgetting the pool. In his room she told him to get undressed in the bathroom and wait her to throw his clothes in for him. And not to her surprise he came out, fully nude, and not one bit ashamed. As if he had anything to be ashamed of, Pepper could see why all those women wanted to sleep with him. They had to come to a compromise to even get him in his underwear.

"Pepper Potts you...you are the woman I've been waiting for all these years. I should have seen it sooner! I love you!"

"Tony shhh you need to sleep."

"No no no Pepper! I love you! You're beautiful and smart and funny. I love you all of you. The way you are you're perfect...crazy gorgeous."

"Tony you _almost died_," he almost looked hurt, but she had to say it.

"But it was okay! You were there to save me!" He pulled her into his bed, "you're always there when I need you Pepper that's why I love you so much." He pulled her even closer, kissing her gently as if he didn't want to hurt was falling for him, she was going to give in and be his crutch again. She let him pull her even closer, pull off her wet clothes, and make love to her.

She wanted it, God she had always wanted it, and she hadn't even fathomed how fantastic it was. But it could never last and she knew that.

So she wrote a note. A note that told Tony that she loved him but couldn't be with him, in any way, anymore. This note didn't gently ease the crutch out, it pulled it fast and painfully. Leaving Tony Stark once again on the ground bleeding, alone.

Four months later Pepper called. She told him that they needed to try them, as a relationship. They planned to meet at her apartment that evening. Tony was ecstatic, he shaved, got one of his best suits out, and even drove her favorite Audi. He never made it, on his way he saw a party filled with friends and women.

Pepper was left alone in her apartment crying, as she rubbed her swollen stomach. "Mommas sorry baby, I really thought daddy was coming," she murmured to her stomach.

When the baby was born Pepper was ecstatic. Pepper filled the small room next to hers with pink everything. Their daughter was no doubt Tony's. With large brown eyes, dark brown almost black hair, and the genius gene obvious from birth. As soon as little Delena was born she looked at everything wide eyed with the same curiosity that Pepper had seen in Tony's eyes. Happy visited the hospital. The first to meet Pepper's daughter. She was beautiful, as soon as he saw her, he looked at Pepper and knew that Tony was the father. _That selfish asshole, _he thought, _where the hell is he?_

Happy drove Pepper and Delena Charleen Potts home to Pep's modest townhouse, and carried the diaper bag up for her setting it down off the side in the doorway. She thanked him for the unnecessary job he had done and closed the door, she was going to have to be a single parent and she had to deal with it. Pepper Looked at the infant as she sat in her car seat, wide eyed as ever. Then as Delenas eyes met Pepper's she started screaming, she gingerly picked her child up and rocked her into the living room.

"You're going to need a lock higher up on the door here," Tony said as he came in from the balcony, "because as soon as she's walking she is going to figure this one out." Pepper jumped at the sound of his voice, but Delenas eyes just lit up. "Happy called me, said it was an emergency. Matter of life or death." His eyes settled on the pink bundle of blankets cradled in Pep's arms. He walked closer and held his arm out, "Can I hold her?"

Pepper hesitated, she didn't want to hand Delena over to him. She had chosen the night he stood her up that she was going to do this alone. There was no place in this child's life that an alcoholic father fit in. "How did you get in here?" she mumbled.

"Never gave my key back, not sure why I had one, but I never gave it back," he replied arms still open. Tony took a few more steps closer until one of his hands were on the child. Delena giggled, reached for her fathers hand, and successfully grabbed his finger. Pepper smiled as the child played with his hand, it looked so right, so _natural_ that she didn't know what to do. Tony placed his other hand on the small of Pepper's back and gently rubbed her.

"She sure doesn't look like a Potts," he blurted out.

"That's because _Delena _is purely her fathers child, not a bit like me," Pepper locked eyes with Tony unsure if he was trying to ask her if the child was his. "A full blood Stark." His blood froze, Pepper's child _his?_ No, Pepper was too smart for that, she wouldn't let him kiss her much less impregnate her. He took a good look at Delena, she damn sure looked like him.

"Is th-Delena why you quit?" Tony pushed Pepper's cheek so she had to look at him. She was crying, terrified by the idea that Tony Stark couldn't recognize his own child. _He's going to deny her, deny _you; _you aren't beautiful enough to be one of Tony Stark's infamous women. Delena is going to grow up fatherless. _A dark voice said. Tony couldn't stand it any longer, he gently took the child from Pepper and carried her over to the bassinet, hushing her the whole way. He then turned to Pepper, still not understanding why she told him nothing. "_Why_?" he whimpered.

"Because you needed to be on your own," she replied. No, that wasn't the answer she wanted to say. He came closer to her, nose to nose and grabbed her shoulders. "I tried to tell you, but you _stood me up_! I told myself that I wouldn't allow you to hurt that child like _you've hurt me_ Tony!" She shoved him away as her tears fell.

He just stared at her. _She's crying, and I'm the reason why. I love her and I've hurt her. She cannot forgive me for this, its unforgivable. _"I'm sorry Pepper." Shot in the dark. She shook her head as more tears fell, he pulled her into a hug, "I'm so sorry." She wrapped him in her arms as she rested her head on his collarbone, she wanted to trust him, every cell in her body wanted to, but she couldn't.

"Delena needs a _father _Tony, and I don't believe you can be one." Honesty, the one thing that Pepper could give Tony pounds of, usually hurt him the most. He kissed the top of her head and held her close, nine months without Pepper he had been a wreck the whole time. She just tore his world in half. It's not that he wanted a child, but the fact that he knew he needed something to come home to, to slow him down and take him off the slippery slope he's on. She lifted her head up and let go of him.

"What if I change? I can change for the baby." Pepper shook her head. "I can change for _you_." She shook her head once again. He still had his arms around her shoulders when he did something he hadn't done since his parents funeral, he cried. "Pepper please, I want to be here. For Delena and you. I'll quit drinking, and I'll stay away from the workshop. I can help you Pepper, please just let me help." The great Tony Stark once again breaking down in front of Pepper, begging her for their child.

She pulled his chin up to meet his face. "You'll quit drinking?" He nodded. "Partying?" He nodded. "You _want _to be here for Delena?" He nodded. "And me?" He looked at her and had a moments debate mentally before he got on his knee.

"Virginia Potts I want nothing more than to be here for you. I love you, I've always loved you," he dug in his pocket for it, he always carried it when he is around Pepper. "Pep I'm never going to be able to make up for all the ways I've hurt you," he pulled out his mothers original simple engagement ring, "but I want you because you have stuck by me, when I needed you most, and now I want to stick by you when you need me. I'm not saying that you can't raise this child without me, because I know you can, but I want to be here for the messy things. The first time she runs away from you, when she tells you that she hates you, when she bangs her head into the door and cries for hours afterward. I want to be here for it. All of it...Please?"

"I hate you."

"I know."

"With a passion because-"

"I'm an asshole."

"I know."

"Forgive me?"

"For somethings, never...but yes. Yes, yes I will marry you."

They had an engagement party a few months later. Not Tony's old kind of party, a simple Pepper-fied party with family. Including Rhodey and Happy. And made small talk. Tony was threatened by Pepper's father and brother. Rhodey carried Delena around all night to give mommy and daddy a break.

Obadiah took Tony out to the balcony for a man-to-man talk. They walked out of range of Jarvis' cameras. Tony had his back turned. Obadiah pulled a gun. One shot rang out. Tony fell.

Pepper was deemed the widow. She inherited the fortune. Obadiah was never caught. He took the company until Delena was 18. He died. Pepper ran Stark Industries until Delena was 21. She was a spitting image of her father.

"You've been called the Da Vinci of our time. What do you say to that?" the reporter asked.

"Absolutely ridiculous. I don't paint," she smirked.


End file.
